Model Lily Cole Dances At Doyenne Of Fashion Westwood's Show

Model and actress Lily Cole opens Vivienne Westwood's Red Label show at London Fashion Week with a dance that Westwood says is a metaphor for climate change refugees.

LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (SEPTEMBER 15, 2013) (REUTERS) - British model Lily Cole opened Vivienne Westwood's Red Label Spring/Summer 2014 collection show atLondon Fashion Week on Sunday (September 15) with a metaphorical dance that she and Westwood said they had come up with together to symbolise the plight of climate refugees.

Calling the show "an impossible happening" on the invitation card, Westwood showed off her new line for the Red Label collection, a typically smarter fusion of Westwood's trademark edgy style, albeit with models wearing heavy white makeup.

Ahead of the show, U.S. actress Anna Kendrick said Westwood's was a difficult one to miss, given how well she understood women's clothing.

"Her pieces are so elaborate and so beautiful that sometimes I feel like on my tiny frame that they won't work, and you know I love how this has come together and everything that I've worn from her has been so stunning and the way that she drapes, you know you think it would swallow you, and it's like she just understands women's bodies, you know," she said.

The show began with a dance from Cole, a friend of Westwood's, who moved in a dark spotlight in the centre of the room.

Westwood said the dance was designed to highlight the plight of those affected by climate change.

"We wanted to support climate refugees, and the point is when their environment is taken away from them, is degraded totally they will die," she said.

"They tried to leave, they have to leave, but there's nowhere to go. It's the same as the shoes in the dance that trap the girl, and so this dance is a metaphor about climate refugees, and animals, of course, and this is what the models were, they were supposed to look like animals trapped in the headlights, they were supposed to look like," she added.

Westwood, who came to fame during Britain's Punk revolution in the 1970s, is an environmental activist, most recently seen at a protest against fracking in West Sussex in August.

Asked how she and Cole met, Westwood said it started with a little gift.

"The first time I really was in contact with Lily was my 70th birthday two years ago when she sent me a present of some rainforest land. That was a present," she told Reuters Television.

Cole said the metaphorical dance also tried to bring a deeper sense of meaning to how people thought about their lives.

"Somehow it evolved into this concept of the dance, and as she said it referenced this idea of, very abstractly and subtly but kind of communicating this story of climate refugees and the idea of so much of the problems are caused by all of our relationship to life, and this kind of dance of life and what we chose to do with our life and this kind of activity," she said.

Guests at the show were handed postcards reading "This is my Voice", on the back addressed to United NationsSecretary-General Ban Ki-moon, that Westwood encouraged people to sign and post.

The 72-year old designer is among scores of designers showcasing their new collections at London Fashion Week.